Mandarine

Open a mandarin and you find, perfectly arranged, its segments in a crown around the heart. Jacques Charles, within his great stainless-steel series, resolutely Seventies in spirit, made of it the design of a lamp: curved metal blades radiate from a centre, like the segments of the fruit opened into a corolla. Between them, the light bursts out in a star and casts a halo of rays on the wall. The polished metal cuts each blade in a clean stroke. Fruit, flower and sun at once, the form blazes from its luminous heart.